Many internet content providers such as news related websites, blogs, etc. allow users to comment on articles or content items, as well as comment on the comments provided by other users. These comments are typically displayed “inline” where replies are displayed below and offset to their parent comment. In addition, many of the commenting systems allow users to insert links, images, and videos into their comments. Such inline commenting systems allow for conversations or “chats” to be formed with respect to a particular article or content item.
While such commenting systems are successful with respect to text or image based content item, they have not been successfully applied to video content items. First, video content items have an additional time dimension that is not associated with text content items. For example, a viewer may desire to comment on a particular scene of a movie after the scene has ended. Because there is no way to associated comments with particular times during the movie, a later user who views the comment while watching the movie before the scene may either not understand the comment or may have their viewing experience spoiled.
Second, because viewers typically view video content items such as television programs or movies using the full screen of a display, there is often little space to display the comments associated with the video content items. Therefore, facilitating chats or conversations using the inline systems described above may not be effective with respect to video content items, especially where the comments are associated with particular times during the playback of the video content items.